CULTURED MINDS

PERSONAL CHOICE

 

 In contrast to older findings (Iyengar & Lepper, 1999); (Kim,& Sherman, 2007); (Kim & Drolet, 2003); (Savani, Markus, & Conner, 2008) which suggest that personal choice is more motivational and more highly valued by people from individualistic (vs collectivistic) cultural contexts, (Kim, H. S., & Drolet, A. 2009) opine that worldwide people place an equal importance on the value of personal choice. They are supported by (Aaker & Schmitt, 2001) in arguing that, even in more collectivist contexts, people are equally self-expressive. What differs is the purpose of their choice: for collectivists “[choice] may be an act of self-expression motivated by a need to express external aspects of the self (e.g., social status, social ties, and connections)” rather than internal individual uniqueness. They demonstrate that “Asian Americans are in fact more concerned than European Americans about choice if the choice reflects a person’s social and external characteristics”(emphasis added). 

 

(Krijnen, 2010)’s study on restaurant orders and food choice supports these findings; they say people from collectivist cultures use choice to “convey their positive self-image to their social environment” 

 

 

Brands as Self-Expression

Choice of brand is often viewed as a means of self-expression. Furthermore certain values, such as the need to “save face” in some Asian cultures, can emerge as an important impetus behind consumption. On this point, research by (Wong & Ahuvia, 1998) indicates that the purchase or use of prestigious, more publicly visible products will be more important to Southeast Asian consumers. A more recent example is that, in China, wine tends to be more associated with face and status (rather than the pure enjoyment of drinking, as is more common in some countries e.g France). Enhancing face and social status is perhaps the reason many Chinese wine consumers spend more on wine to be used as gifts (Yu et al., 2009). 

 

On a tangential note, norms concerning gifting itself also vary greatly across cultures and will impact consumers’ spending patterns. (Komter, 2007) provide a sociological perspective on gift-giving practices and (Craig & Douglas, 2005; Littrell & Miller, 2001) mention this topic. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance occurs when individuals act in a way that does not reflect their ‘true’ preferences, then later feel the need to justify their action by shifting their ‘true’ preferences to align with it (Festinger,1962). Because people from collectivist cultures do not see choices as reflective of their ‘inner selves’ to the same extent as for people from individualist cultures, it is expected that they experience less cognitive dissonance. Accordingly, (Heine & Lehman, 1997) stated that “dissonance effects are, at least in some important ways, culturally constructed.” A 2004 study supports this prediction by showing that, in absence of any social cues, participants from the more collectivist culture (Japan) participants did not exhibit any cognitive dissonance effects, although participants from the more individualist culture (United States) did (Kitayama, Snibbe, Markus & Suzuki, 2004).

 

However, as hinted in the (Kitayama, Snibbe, Markus & Suzuki, 2004) study, the social context of decisions is significant. People of all cultural backgrounds can experience dissonance, but culture orientation influences which situation dissonance is aroused and ways it can be reduced (Imada & Kitayama, 2010;  Hoshino-Browne, Zanna, Spencer, Zanna, Kitayama & Lackenbauer, 2005). For example, more collectivist-oriented people justified their choices more when they made them for someone else and more individualist-oriented individuals justified their choices more when they made them for themselves (Lee & Jeyaraj, 2014). Note that for this study the distinct patterns of cognitive dissonance effects were obtained merely through priming the different cultural orientations.